BlackBerry wins patent infringement case brought by NXP

Back in April 2012, NXP hit BlackBerry with a lawsuit claiming the company had infringed upon six NXP patents in their BlackBerry smartphones and BlackBerry PlayBook tablet surrounding design, data transmission and other features of those devices. Today, BlackBerry has announced the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division has found both that BlackBerry did not infringe NXP's patents, and that the patents NXP asserted against BlackBerry are invalid.

"We are pleased with the jury's verdict," said Steve Zipperstein, Chief Legal Officer at BlackBerry. "While this is a victory for BlackBerry, we look forward to a time when technology companies will no longer be forced to spend huge amounts of time and money defending frivolous patent cases such as these, and instead invest their resources to drive innovation. Until then, we will vigorously defend our intellectual property rights and contest all meritless claims."

That's a solid win for BlackBerry in the courts where they've been actively defending themselves against the likes of NXP and Typo Products rather successfully. You can jump below for the full press release.

Press Release

BlackBerry Wins Patent Infringement Case

WATERLOO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 7, 2014) - BlackBerry(R) Limited (NASDAQ:BBRY)(TSX:BB), a world leader in mobile communications, today announced that a federal jury ruled in favor of BlackBerry in a patent infringement case brought by NXP BV in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division. The verdict was a sweeping victory for BlackBerry, as the jury found both that BlackBerry did not infringe NXP's patents, and that the patents NXP asserted against BlackBerry are invalid.

"We are pleased with the jury's verdict," said Steve Zipperstein, Chief Legal Officer at BlackBerry. "While this is a victory for BlackBerry, we look forward to a time when technology companies will no longer be forced to spend huge amounts of time and money defending frivolous patent cases such as these, and instead invest their resources to drive innovation. Until then, we will vigorously defend our intellectual property rights and contest all meritless claims."

About BlackBerry

A global leader in mobile communications, BlackBerry(R) revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, BlackBerry aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, BlackBerry operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The company trades under the ticker symbols "BB" on the Toronto Stock Exchange and "BBRY" on the NASDAQ. For more information, visit www.BlackBerry.com.

"While this is a victory for BlackBerry, we look forward to a time when technology companies will no longer be forced to spend huge amounts of time and money defending frivolous patent cases such as these, and instead invest their resources to drive innovation..."

well said Steve... this needs to happen so that we as customers can benefit!

"will no longer be forced to spend huge amounts of time and money defending frivolous patent cases such as these" That's a nice theory but the reality is that BB themselves have been the source of many lawsuits of a questionable nature ie. KIK. On the other hand, hopefully they were reimbursed for costs, that would certainly make someone think before launching suit.

I hate to go against the crowd, at least in part. This claim made it to the jury. That means it was something of a close call. If it was a slam dunk for Blackberry, Blackberry would have won on a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment. But, for one reason or another, there were enough material facts in dispute to send this to the jury. I'm glad Blackberry won, but calling the case frivolous is not accurate.

All these patent laws are getting ridiculous. It's keeping entrepenuers from creating new things. Basically if someone tried to make a new facebook, he wouldn't be able to without all the patents in place. How about we also make rules on suing other people or companies?

Good. Now if they can nail Typo to the wall, the would be even better. BlackBerry, stay unique and develop your own ecosystem further. Stay the heck away and out of Android. Please. BlackBerry security depends on this.

BlackBerry should go after them for wasting there time and money all these years. I hate frivolous patent cases.
And finally BlackBerry is taking action against any other company that tries to wrong them and/or steel its patents, such as the nonsense TYPO.

Many contracts in the US call for the prevailing party to have their court costs paid by the loser. No contract in this case, but BlackBerry could have asked the judge to make the company pay their court costs. My guess is that they were pleased just to put this behind them.

These patent chasers don't actually have money to pay anyway, so BlackBerry would have been wasting their time.

Duh...corporate lawyers get paid whether they sit in the office and do nothing or stand in court defending the company. As Zipperstien said, this tells others to back off and let BlackBerry work on important stuff.

Um, actually, you're thinking about court fees. Legal fees and expenses their own legal team needed to defend their case is still fronted by BB. And besides, if what you're saying is true, you actually just proven my point, since I'm saying expenses in these litigations probably added to their losses in the previous quarters. If they would win a counter-suit against this company to cover their expenses, then that should be a nice chunk of change back into their bank...

Speaking of kicking ass, in the phone of the year vote at laptop magazine, the z30 is suddenly 200 hundred votes short of winning... let's show em what Blackberry's made of and vote the androids out! voting ends at 9:00am tomorrow!